Construction on Regina's $19M urgent care centre is complete, but it still needs staff
Unions say there aren't enough Sask. nurses to staff the centre on top of existing hospitals
Construction on Regina's new urgent care centre (UCC) is now complete, with the pristine building and unused medical equipment awaiting the tens of thousands of patients expected to flow through the $19-million facility annually, but nursing unions say the province doesn't have the staffing capacity to handle the facility on top of existing hospitals.
Once operational sometime this summer, the UCC will be tasked with taking the pressure off of Regina's two overburdened emergency rooms.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) anticipates the UCC will annually treat 20,000 patients with urgent but not life-threatening injuries or conditions.
People with sprains, broken bones and other minor illnesses including infections will be directed to the UCC instead of an emergency department.
"We're trying as best as we can to have the right patient in front of the right health-care provider at the right time," Health Minister Everett Hindley said after a news conference announcing the centre's completion.
The UCC, located on Albert Street in Regina's North Central neighbourhood, will also have a separate entrance for people needing mental health and addictions support, with specialized mental health staff working 24 hours a day.
"Right now some of those patients, they're ending up in our emergency departments because they don't have anywhere else to turn. That may not necessarily be the best place," Hindley said.
While construction on the UCC is complete, staffing is not.
The SHA has posted 125 health-care jobs and is in the process of interviewing for the doctors, nurses and other workers needed to staff the facility.
Tracy Zambory, president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, said that Regina needs the UCC, but that the province doesn't have enough nurses to staff it.
"We're leading Canada right now in the shortage of nurses," Zambory said, adding that the province paid $70 million for private agency nurses to fill vacancies in 2024.
We are in one of the worst nursing shortages that we've had in over a decade in this province.- Tracy Zambory
She said the government has focused on recruiting instead of retaining, leading to an exodus of mid- and late-career nurses.
"We are in one of the worst nursing shortages that we've had in over a decade in this province and we're doing nothing to address that."
Zambory said nurses will likely leave their existing jobs to work at the new UCC, leaving holes in hospital staffing.
"People are going to come and want to work at the urgent care centre because they're finding themselves in a workplace that is in such chaos. It's so short of nurses."
Both Hindley and Premier Scott Moe pointed to the province's addition of 550 new training seats in different health-care designations, and a focus on recruiting health-care workers from the Philippines, as potential solutions to staffing the UCC.
Beverly Balaski, CEO of the Registered Psychiatric Nurses Association of Saskatchewan, said psychiatric nursing is a discipline unique to Western Canada and not offered in many other countries.
"Recruitements right now from the Philippines and other countries has netted zero. In the last two years I have not licensed one internationally educated nurse."
Like Zambory, Balaski said the UCC is very needed, but also that it will likely pull nurses from existing hospital jobs.
"It's going to cause a vacancy in another area such as long-term care, acute psychiatry or perhaps some of the addiction or community services that are being offered."
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with files from Liam O' Connor